Nate Valdez
Nate Valdez is a former classmate of Miles Spectre and Julie Lien and the deuteragonist of the PEH trilogy. Constantly overlooked for his small stature and clumsy nature, he finds a kindred spirit in Miles and nervously stands by his side when the Nexus calls upon him. Fictional History Early Life Nate Valdez attended high school in New York City, with Miles Spectre and Julie Lien. Though he never got to know either of them particularly well, he did develop somewhat of a crush on Julie. Years after graduation, Nate bumped into Julie in Union Square and made a few futile attempts to awkwardly rekindle their friendship. While Julie initially avoided these advances, destiny saw that Nate would instead be reintroduced to Miles Spectre. 2007 (PEH2) While picking up dinner from AJ's Bar & Grill where Miles worked, Nate accidentally spilled his chicken parm on the shoe of a bar patron by the name of Drago. This instigated a completely unbalanced fight in Drago's favor, which was halted by Miles. After Drago's departure, Miles, seeing his old self in Nate, invited Nate over for some video gaming the next day, to which Nate gladly accepted. Before meeting up with Miles the following afternoon, Nate attended an anti-violence protest where me met many Nintega Supporters petitioning the violent games being put out by a company called Macrohard Developers. Macrohard president Phillip Yates soon exited the building along with his entourage of designers and body guards, one of which was the drunk from the bar, Drago. While distracted by a scuffle between a protester named Ray Storm and Phillip's bodyguard Nack, Nate was oblivious to the discreet placement of a game disc in his back pocket. After the protest, Nate left for Miles' Apartment. On the way, he bumped into Julie again, and invited her to join them in their video gaming. She agreed to show up later and Nate continued on his way. At the apartment, he was quickly introduced by Miles to Elias, before discovering the game disc in his back pocket. Inserting the disc, the three friends found themselves swiftly whisked away into their video game system. The three appeared in a strange place called The Nexus. There they learned that they had been chosen to rescue the gaming world from a virus that Yates was implanting into his competitors games via the Nexus. Frightened by these new circumstances, Nate reluctantly followed Miles and Elias into battle. Julie soon joined them and, splitting into teams, she found herself partnered with Nate in saving Kirby's Dreamland from Kratos the God of War (personified by Drago). Nate's cowardice left the bulk of the fighting up to Julie, though she proved quite capable. The duo soon received word from a man named Dr. Light that they must reunite with Miles, Elias, and their collected allies to stop Yates, who had entered the game world himself to protect his virus. They all met on Delta Halo and battled Phillip's armies. Nate was finally able to pay back Drago with a solid victory, and managed to rescue Julie in the process. Nate was instrumental in leading their team off of the Installation, while Miles activated the Nexus Virus on Halo itself, destroying it and stopping Yates once and for all. Returning to Earth, Julie and Nate found themselves to be much closer, and they were able to team up to thwart Drago one last time, in an attempted assassination. Nate and Julie soon became a couple and when Miles decided to move out of his apartment, Nate took up residence with his reluctant new friend Elias Locke. 2009 (PEH3) With his new living arrangement, Nate would be forced to deal with barely tolerable mistreatment at the hands of Elias. Following the death of their friend Miles, a guilty Elias became even more vicious towards Nate, creating a larger schism between the two former allies. Word of Miles' death was followed swiftly by the news that Sally Rouge, best friend of Nate's new girlfriend Julie, had also been killed. When Julie left for Sally's home town in South Carolina, Nate was left with no one to defend him against Eli's increasingly demeaning insults and he eventually decided to visit the one friend he had left: Fiona Braddock. Unfortunately, she too would leave Nate to fend for himself, through no fault of her own. Fiona, who had recently been possessed by Amethyst Barone, immediately knocked Nate unconscious and dragged him off to a prison at the center of the Omega Halo Installation. When Nate awoke, he found himself locked behind a set of electric jail bars, along with his old comrade from the last game war, Officer Geoffrey Kicks. The two had been turned into Mario and Bowser by Amethyst's new program and she soon revealed that it had granted her the powers of Cortana as well. Amethyst than offered Geoffrey an ultimatum: join her cause to dominate Earth by bringing the video game world to Earth under her command, or continue to be disrespected by everyone he knows. Geoffrey chose the latter, and to prove his loyalty, he agreed to kill his cellmate and former friend: Nate. After building up the courage, Geoffrey began to strangle Nate and with mere seconds left to spare, Elias and Kirby broke into the Omega prison and deactivated the electric bars, causing Geoffrey to snap out of his obsessive attack and release Nate. This disruption of Amethyst's plan would enrage her prison guard, a robot by the name of 343 Guilty Spark. Spark attacked and severely wounded Elias as he and Nate attempted to leave the detainment center. Too hurt to go on, Eli tasked Nate with shutting down Amethyst's program by plugging in the Spartan Key to the central hub. Nate ran off to complete Eli's mission, while Geoffrey and Kirby stayed behind to protect Eli from the enraged robot. Nate arrived at the central hub, unknowingly passing through an infrared security laser. Recognizing the disturbance, Amethyst appeared in front of Nate to halt the intrusion. She manifested as a small hologram on the dashboard of the Omega Hub itself and informed Nate that his passing through the security laser had initiated a countdown for a fast-acting biological weapon to be released on the entire planet. Nate demanded to know the code that would stop the countdown but Amethyst, knowing that her program would resurrect all of her allies, refused to help. With no idea what to do, Nate eventually received the slightest clue when the countdown requested a 3-digit passcode. Recalling the name of his enraged robot prison guard, Nate quickly entered in the code "3-4-3" and shut down the entire Omega Halo program, which in turn turned off the mind control that was possessing Fiona, the energies that allowed Amethyst's army to respawn, and the force field that granted her power over the Earth. Amethyst fled the hub in fear and Nate did the same, though not before finding a Fire Flower and transforming into Fire Mario. Nate returned to the detainment center to find that Kirby had defeated 343 Guilty Spark. Nate, Geoffrey, and Kirby than helped to carry Elias back to the main battle further out from the Hub. By the time the four friends reached the main battle, Cortana had already arrived and their friends Miles and Fiona were being held at gunpoint by her partially-reformed fiance, Phillip Yates. As they all charged to their friend's aide, Phillip fired his plasma rifle directly at Miles and Fiona. The blast was deflected by the Tri-Force Field that wrapped around Nate and his friends, when he and Elias came into the vicinity of Miles, hence bringing the three Tri-Force bearers together. With Amethyst and her allies caught off guard and their respawning powers deactivated, Nate had given his friends the upper hand in battle. Nate did his best to take down Phillip in his Master Chief persona, but even without the Omega Hub to power him, Chief had already become too strong for anyone to take down. When Chief set his sights on Geoffrey, Nate ran to his side and distracted the faceless creature, only to be caught and depowered from Fire Mario back down to Regular Mario. Through no lack of effort on his part, Nate was unable to break away and it was only the appearance of Miles as Super Sonic that saved Nate from another near strangulation. With Miles help, Nate escaped Chief's clutches and the creature was killed. After the battle Nate was reunited with Julie and they soon joined their friends in saying goodbye to the friends they lost in battle against Amethyst and her army. Nate informed his friends of a new protection unit Geoffrey had been given control of and informed Elias that he may be a candidate for the team. Fiona also revealed to her friends that she would be leaving Macrohard Developers but suggested to Eddie Naka that he hire Nate as her replacement, as a result of the quick thinking and problem-solving skills that he showed at the Omega Halo Hub. Nate, modest as ever, couldn't deny that the position was an attractive one. 2073 (Epilogue) Roughly 64 years later, Nate visits his old apartment for the first time in many years and reunites with Miles and Elias for a 3-player game of Frogger. During this gaming match, Nate realizes that one of Fiona's Nexus Discs has made its way into Miles' pocket and urges him to put the device in one last time. Miles does so and the three friends have one last adventure in the gaming world, before getting a game over of natural causes. Production Notes *Nate Valdez is played by David Giusti. *Nate's surname was not revealed until the third film of the trilogy. *Nate was not introduced until the 2nd film, although it was mentioned multiple times that both Miles and Julie had at least known of him for years. *Nate acquires a mustache when becoming Mario in PEH3, which is very similar to the one Miles acquires in PEH1. :*Nate has no mustache when becoming Mario in PEH2. The reason for this is unknown. It is possible that Nate was too weak to grow facial hair at that time. *Nate's character was the last character to be written into the script of PEH2. The persona of Mario was originally intended to be given to a humbled Julian Dimitri. :*A scheduling conflict with Mike Santanella made this impossible and the character of Nate was written to take on the persona of Mario, as well as many of the character traits intended for the more humbled Julian. *Nate's full name is derived from two characters hailing from the Archie Comics Sonic Universe: :*NATE is the first name of Nate Morgan, scientific adviser to King Acorn and inventor of the Power Ring. ::*This character's last name is also the namesake of the PEH character Father Morgan. :*VALDEZ is the name of a blue chameleon native to Angel Island. He was the first recruit of the reformed Acorn Secret Service and best friend to Chaotix member Espio. He was later captured in the line of duty, where he was roboticized and Espio was forced to kill him. Category:Main Characters